Page 79 of A Fate Unwoven
“What you want isn’t justice,” she sneered, straining against his hold over her. “It’s vengeance.”
His threads darkened. “I suppose that depends on who is telling the story. But I digress. It is clear you are not ready to play your part in our plans just yet.”
The cultist took a step closer, the strange energy of his magic brushing up against hers. Lena winced, pushing at the intrusion with everything she had, her own power thrashing inside of her like a storm waiting to be unleashed. The cultist stumbled back a step, and for a moment, some of the numbness in Lena’s body receded.
Before she could react, the cultist righted himself, his power surging back through her with renewed vigor. Lena let out a pained gasp as an unbearable feeling of ice speared through her chest.
“Your power grows strong, but you are still confined by the limitations of your fear. How awful it must be, to wield such magic and yet still be so powerless to harness it. Socagedby what you’ve failed to achieve.” The cultist smiled beneath his hood, teeth flashing white in the shadows. “There is, however, a way to free yourself of your prison. Would you like to hear it?”
Lena tried not to let the spark of curiosity his words sent through her show, but the cultist must have sensed that his words had hit their mark, because the smile beneath his hood widened, wolf-like and satisfied. He leaned in close, words dropping to barely a whisper, the surge of his power in her veins drowning out the erratic beating of her own heart. “If you wish to be free, Lenora, all you have to do is use your power to kill me.”
“No!” Dimas’s shout echoed off the temple walls, drawing the cultist’s attention.
The cultist’swrecen,still pinning Finæn to the floor, tilted its head toward the emperor. The general, Ioseph, and Yana all tensed, each gripping their weapons.
“I’m afraid she doesn’t have a choice,” the cultist said, voice as dark as the shadows encasing his threads. “Thewrecenis bound to me. Killing me is the only way to stop it from ripping out your friend’s heart.”
“It isn’t even possible,” Dimas said, his doubt obvious even despite their bond. “The power it would take would consume her.”
“Perhaps,” the cultist said, his gaze flicking back to Lena’s, “or perhaps it will free her.”
Lena’s lungs constricted. She stared up into the shadow of the cultist’s hood, searching for some sign of a trick, but the cultist remained statue-like before her. Watching her.Studyingher. Waiting to see how she would react.
He knew, somehow, what her freedom meant to her. WhatFinænmeant to her. Knew and was more than willing to use it as a weapon against her.
But Lena was tired of being used. The cold weight of the dagger she’d picked up beside the dead pilgrim pressed into her wrist. If she could just shift her arm slightly, she could get the dagger to drop into her palm. And then all she’d need to do was break through the cultist’s hold long enough to drive the blade into his chest.
She just had to make sure the cultist wouldn’t anticipate what she was planning. So Lena let a sliver of curiosity show in her expression and said, “Show me how.”
“Lenora, you won’t—”
The cultist waved a hand toward the emperor. A surge of energy rippled through the air, slamming into Dimas’s chest with a force Lena felt through the bond. She sucked in a breath, knees buckling with the effort to stay on her feet.
This time, Dimas’s retinue did not hold back. They lunged, weapons raised, only to be hit with the same dark energy that had slammed into their emperor. Their limbs went stiff as the energy slithered around their threads, as if whatever dark magic the cultist was using was binding them in place.
“Interrupt me one more time,Ehmar,and I promise none of you will leave here alive.”
Dimas fell silent, his fear churning Lena’s stomach alongside her own. But she couldn’t afford to be afraid. One wrong move, and Finæn’s life would be the cost.
“You see my threads, don’t you? They call to you, to the power inside of you. Power that you have been suppressing since the moment you received it. You have been trying so hard to control it, when all you need to do is embrace it. The power knows your will, Lenora; it is simply waiting for you to wield it.”
The cultist took a small step toward her, close enough now that Lena could just make out the faint outline of his features, green-blue eyes and a thin, narrow mouth, all framed by cheekbones as sharp as the dagger up her sleeve. But mostly, he looked human. So much so that Lena’s resolve wavered.
She’d never taken a human life before. Silah had been as close as she’d come, but the trader had already turned into akorupted.
But if she didn’t kill him, then Finæn would die, and then Ioseph, followed by anyone else who got in the way of his plans. The bodies littering the temple floor were proof enough that he wasn’t bluffing.
The cultist might have looked like a human, but deep down, he was as monstrous as thekoruptedwho’d ripped these pilgrims apart.
And Lena was going to make him pay.
“That’s it,” the cultist said, thin lips twisting into a pleased smile.
His hand raised to cup her cheek, and through the haze of magic thrumming through her being Lena was sure she saw a flash of ink on his palm, sharp lines joining together to create a familiar symbol. She tried to focus on it. To focus on anything but the power rising inside of her, but it was useless. Nothing mattered beyond the cultist’s threads, bright and beautiful and waiting for her command.
“I can see the rage in your eyes. The need for justice. Give in to that feeling, channel it like a blade, and when you feel as if you’re going to burn up with your rage, all you have to do is let it go.”
For a moment, she let herself consider it. How it would feel to release all of her fear and anger and rage in one magical blast. To embrace every emotion she’d kept bottled inside of herself not as a thing that made her weak, but as a weapon that made her strong.
